Competition Music!

Saturday, February 10, 2007

I'm so old!

I really don't have anything particularly exciting to tell you guys...

On Friday, a pair of scientists came through to Wits to give a talk on defensive behaviour in lab rats and mice. The pair were a husband and wife couple who both work in the same field (close enough anyway). It was really odd because they were over here all the way from Hawaii (why anyone would leave there to come here is beyond me!) but they had little to no accent.

Actually, they probably did have accents but because most of the Americans that I have ever met were only from the southern states, the Hawaii'ian's accent didn't really sound like anything in comparison.

There was some confusion about when they would be arriving due to the fact that they send an e-mail saying that they would be there on Friday the 8th. And seeing as the 8th was actually a Thursday, nobody was really sure when to be expecting them. But they eventually showed up on the Friday. After they chatted to my supervisor for a while, we were all introduced to them, we being all my supervisor's students and Helen who unwittingly arrived to see me just in time for tea with the foreigners.

So we all sat around and had some tea, discussing our various areas of study and our projects. It was a little awkward because I was balancing on the edge of a desk and every now and again I had to stand to ensure that my legs didn't go to sleep. During the discussion, it became clear that one of the Hawaii'ian's concerns was being eaten by elephants which we all thought was very funny. Naturally we didn't laugh at them but all went quietly away after tea to snigger amongst ourselves. This was while my supervisor took them off to go and see the breeding populations of striped mouse that we keep and use for studies at the university.

Here is a picture of a baby one that we found in a nest when we were in Darling in November last year:

After that Helen and I went off to go and get some lunch which we had to eat along our way back to our building because of the fact that the Hawaii'ians talk was going to begin shortly and I had been given the task of ensuring that there was a laser pointer available for them as well as all the necessary connections for the speakers laptop and the projector. I managed to get everything all organised and got back with enough time to set it all up with the help of our groundsman, Mr. Schniederman (AKA: Spiderman).

The talk itself was fascinating! It was so cool and it helped me to understand the functioning of antidepressive drugs and the difference between the chronic and acute use of psychiatric drugs. It was very cool!

After the talk was done, the Hawii'ians left with one of our staff members and my supervisor came to chat to Helen and I about their talk. It was actually quite a close call because we had actually just been onto the internet to read the CV of Helen's supervisor and to confirm that his dog had been in a KFC advert. All this while we were supposed to be working...heh heh.

During our little chat with my supervisor, he happened to mention something to me which left me somewhat perplexed because he said that he was so impressed that I was always working so hard on a Friday afternoon. But I never work hard on a Friday! I generally work until about lunch and then the rest of the day is spent messing around or up at the BioSoc bar.

So after he had left, Helen and I confirmed that the dog was infact the one in the advert. Soon thereafter, we decided to go home but just as we were about to do so - I was in my lab packing up at the time - Helen ran into one of the honours students who was on their way to open up the BioSoc pub and wanted us to go join them. So we did. It was really nice to go and spend some time with them there and to remeber the social aspect of the honours year which we no longer experience.

I then had to go and fetch my sisters and Athena to go off to supper. My sisters were actually going off to some club in Melville but I was charged with taking them there. So with a car full of people, I went off to Melville. Helen was with us too.

I disposed of my siblings and began the hunt for a parking bay that didn't require me to parallel park. I just can't do it. I must have failed to inherit the gene that allows me the ability to parallel park. So I found one bay that didn't require any parallelling and stayed there. The three of us then went off to 'Soi', my new-found favorite restaurant! The food was amazing and once we could no longer eat another thing, we decided to call it a day and head home.

As we left the main street in Melville, I was pulled over by cops who wanted to know if I had been drinking. Immediately I panicked because I had been drinking that afternoon and I began to wonder if that would show up on a breathalizer test, 4 hours later! The cop then demanded my drivers licence and asked if he could do a breathalizer test on me. I gave him my licence and said that I would take the test. Once I said that, he looked disappointed and gave me back my licence, sending me on my way. I must say that I was certainly not even remotely close to tipsy at this stage so I'm sure that the test wouldn't have revealed a thing but I freaked out just the same.

The rest of the weekend has been uneventful. I attended my cousins tacho evening last night which was fun. That's about all.

Well, I was originally going to write up a post about how close it was to my birthday and how I was feeling archaic but then I realised that it was incredibly boring and so I deleted all that I had written and started again without changing the title. One sentence!